Santo Domingo. – Dozens of environmentalists and environment defense organizations on Tuesday staged a protest to reject the construction of a cement plant in the Los Haitises National Park’s relief zone, a project they say would seriously harm its biodiversity.

Representatives of the Dominican Academy of Science, Group Jaragua, Dominican Environmental Group CAD, Santo Domingo State University, Toy Jarto (I’m sick of it) and others announced they’ll block the plant’s construction, with rallies and pickets in the next few days and in the United Nations building in New York on Friday.

They said they’ll also stage a march along the streets of the city Salcedo (north), as well as several pickets in Santiago (north) and in the Dominican Consulate in Spain.

They said the would harm the Karts of Los Haitises, an unique formation in the world and the country’s second larges strategic water reserve.

In that regard Jaragua Group president Ivonne Arias called the project unviable in its present location, because the formation of Los Haitises stores billions of cubic meters of water, essential to the five eastern provinces and their hotels, including Santo Domingo.

She said the President alone cannot dispose of the national patrimony. “He cannot impose this on anybody, we are not in a dictatorship, we’re in a democratic regime where the institutions have the right to express their opposition against the things that damage the common patrimony.”

Other organizations which oppose the project include La Multitud, Spelunker Group, the farmers grouped in the MCCU, Alternative Social Forum, National Environmental Assembly (ANA), COTEDO, the Catholic Church Environmental Pastoral Group, Collective Woman and Health, Camañista Circles among others.